Firstly thanks for writing that - i find it pretty interesting. Here is my attempt to disagree with you ;)

We have limited free will in that there is a limited number of options available to us - we can only choose between certain things. If I wish to grow wings fly to the moon, no amount of free will make that happen. So when I say free will, i mean the ability to choose between the options that are available to us.

God being all knowing doesn't deny humans free will unless we are governed completely by our situation and have not choice at all in anything - ie we are mere mechanical objects operating in response to what happens around us. The clockwork theory i think...

For example, if I travelled into the future and saw what you would do tomorrow, would that then mean that you do not have any choice in tomorrows activities? Just because I know what you "will" choose doesn't deny the fact that you still "get" to choose. My knowing your future wouldn't mean that your choices were any more or less "free".

People can accept that the past is a single set of events. And whilst there are, from our view point, millions of possible futures for us, we will go along only a single one. Often people feel that this takes their free will away, but i don't see how that works...

I think that we would only cease to have free will if we ourselves were transcendent because if we knew everything, and every outcome to our choices, then with such great knowledge we would only ever be able to let ourselves choose the "best" option becuase we would see the damage choosing any other option would cause. We would thus be unable to choose anything except the "best" option - i think...

God, in managing every minute detail of our lives, has "caused" (indirectly) the existence of all the factors that make our minds up. I.e., the cirumstances of our lives (playing a massively important role in decision-making) are beyond our free will.

How would God go about breaking the causily of cause-and-affect clockwork humans, without also breaking the methods by which it tries to influence us? For example: If our actions affect others' decisions, then, others' "free" decisions are restricted by our own actions and our own free will. The more powerfully we indoctrinate, or affect, another person, the more of their free will we can take away.

If the being doing the manipulating, with an incredible amount of micromanagement, how can there be any free will left?

Secondly:If circumstances are NOT the sole causes of choices then this would undermine (even God's) systems of justice and punishment, which are completely designed around the fact that real-life events and persuasions affect peoples' "choices".

hello

ok now that is very true and i was surprised someone would be smart enough to prove that theory wrong but here is my explanation. you talk about choices in your argument, but the outcome of are choice depends on a mixture of are conscience, are life experiences and are general knowledge. if i have a choice weather to kill someone, 100 percent of the time i will choose not to. in a way that is not having a choice because if i really want to do it i cant because my conscience holds me back. doesn't that defeat the purpose of choosing.

Re: hello

sorry i pressed enter key by accident lol. alright as i was before. now on the other hand if some kid with a bad conscience is given the choice to kill someone and he chooses to do it, should he really be punished for that choice. if time was rewinded he would make the same choice every time. we can not choose differently because of his general make up of are brains. therefore EVERY CHOICE WE MAKE IS JUST A TEST OF ARE MORALITY.